Book Review: The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila by Carlos Eire

book cover: Life of Teresa

The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila by Carlos Eire | Princeton University Press, 2019

This book, The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila, should be renamed The Life of the Life of Saint Teresa of Avila.  Why?  Because the book is a more about Saint Teresa’s autobiography, The Book of Her Life (oftentimes shortened to Vida in Spanish and Life in English), than it is about Saint Teresa herself.  Carlos Eire is a history professor at Yale University and presents to us an extremely interesting history of, yes, Saint Teresa of Avila, but after her death (1582) the continued ‘life’ of her Life.  

Professor Eire claims that The Book of Her Life really is Teresa’s magnum opus and that her other books (i.e., The FoundationsThe Interior CastleSoliloquies) are afterwords to her main work.  He provides a solid interpretation of Teresa’s Life from a 21st-century perspective.  He does not dismiss her extraordinary visions, locutions, or levitations but puts them as sidebars to the main point of Teresa’s book: an outline of the mystical journey to union with God.  The extraordinary stuff all made sense from a 16th-century mindset, but from the 1700s (the Enlightenment) through today the extraordinary stuff comes across more as psychological disturbances than as actual events.  But the main point – the mystical journey – has a timeless validity.  Professor Eire does not go into all the political entanglements Teresa faced; instead, he concentrates on the entanglements that her Life caused with the Inquisition, her confessors, the Spanish aristocracy, and anyone who read her Life.  Overall, in the first part of his book Professor Eire gives us a clear and easily-read biography of Saint Teresa.  If nothing else, I recommend Eire’s book for this clarity.  

BUT this book gets really interesting after the death of Teresa in 1582, and a lot of the history Professor Eire writes about will be new to even the ardent disciples of Teresa.  Here are just a few of the things I learned:

  • After her death the Dominicans launched a major campaign with the Inquisition to discredit her and block her beatification and the publication of any of her works, but King Philip IV and the royal family silenced any opposition.  
  • After her canonization, Philip IV declared her to be the co-patron of Spain (along with Saint James; i.e., Santiago) but the Pope squelched that.
  • Various picture-books (remember this was an illiterate age) of Teresa’s Life were published after her death.  One of the engravings from a popular picture-book by Arnold van Westerhout became the template that Bernini used in his famous statue, The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa
  • Sigmund Freud and his disciple, Jacques Lacan, pronounced her the patron saint of hysterics.
  • When given a reliquary containing Teresa’s left hand Generalissimo Francisco Franco pronounced her the patron saint of fascism (and the Superior General of the Discalced Carmelites wrote a treatise supporting this!).  Franco even published a magazine for fascist women called Teresa (1936-1975).
  • Virgil Thomson wrote an opera, with the libretto by Gertrude Stein, called Four Saints in Three Actsabout Saint Teresa and Saint Ignatius of Loyola

Do I recommend this book?  You bet!  Whether you’re new to Saint Teresa and her works (especially her Life) or you’ve been a life-long disciple, you will learn a lot. 

tranverberation of teresa
Arnold van Westerhout’s ‘The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa’

Or Everything is Doomed

Carmelite homily for Ash Wednesday, February 26, 2020 – Lectionary 219 (Matthew 6:1-6,16-18)

Humility doesn’t mean being smarmy and allow people to walk all over you or to treat you like a doormat.  No!  Humility means not being controlled by your ego.  That’s what we see in today’s Gospel.  When you pray, don’t pray in front of everybody so everyone says, ‘look how holy she is.’  Or when you give gifts or donations don’t blow a trumpet or call attention to it so everyone says, ‘look how, how generous he is.’  Or when you’re fasting don’t look all beaten up so everyone can say, ‘look how god-focused she is.’  No, that’s all ego.  The idea is to not let ego control this, but to let love control this, God control this, the other control this, your heart control this.  This is the call for Ash Wednesday.  Saint Teresa of Avila writes, “If there is no progress in humility, everything is going to be doomed.”  Let’s make that the focus for this Lent – progress in humility.  Which means simply, don’t be controlled by your ego, be controlled by love. 

The Door to Favors

Carmelite homily for Monday, February 24, 2020 – Lectionary 341 (Mark 9:14-29)

In today’s Gospel the people bring to the disciples a boy who has convulsions.  And the disciples can’t heal this boy, so they bring him to Jesus, and Jesus does heal him.  And the disciples ask, “Why couldn’t we do that?”  And he says, “Well, this one could only be healed by prayer.”  But the call is not  just for the difficult cases to pray, but to pray always, even for the easy cases.  Here’s what Saint Teresa of Avila has to say, “I say only that prayer is the door to favors as great as those the Lord granted me.  If this door is closed, I don’t know how he will grant them.”  So let’s leave the miracles to the Lord, the answers to the Lord, let’s leave everything to the Lord – except prayer.  Let’s do that, and see what happens.  

Be Ye Perfect

Carmelite homily for Sunday, February 23, 2020 – Lectionary 79 (Matthew 5:38-48)

The last line of today’s Gospel says, “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  And sometimes we can hear this and say – oh, I’ve got to be perfect then; I can’t make any mistakes; I can’t make any failures; I cannot sin; I’ve got to be —  ‘ahhhh’ – uptight.  And that’s not what it means at all.  Because if you take it in the whole context, the Father lets the sun shine on the good and the bad alike and the rain fall on the just and the unjust alike, means to treat everyone with love.  Here’s what Saint Teresa of Avila has to write about this.  This comes from her book, The Way of Perfection (it makes sense), “Zeal for perfection is in itself a good thing.  But it could follow that every fault the sisters commit will seem to you a serious breach; and you are careful to observe when they commit them, where they commit them, and then go and inform the prioress.  Often, you don’t see your own faults because of your intense zeal for the religious observance of everybody else.  What the devil is hereby aiming at is no small thing; namely, the cooling of charity and love the sisters have for one another.  So, let each one look to herself only.  For perfection consists of love of God and love of neighbor; whereas, perfectionism comes from the devil.”  So let’s not confuse ‘perfection’ and ‘perfectionism’ today. 

Your Name is Spouse

Carmelite homily for Saturday, February 22, 2020 – Lectionary 535 (Matthew 16:13-19) – the Chair of Peter

In the Gospel for this Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, Jesus asks of his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”  And they give a bunch of answers and finally Simon says, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”  And Jesus turns to him and says, “Your name is Peter.”  He gives him a special name.  But Jesus gives us a special name.  Here’s what Saint Teresa of Avila has to write, “To always live in calm desire to rejoice solely in Christ, one’s spouse.”  That’s the name Jesus, as we get closer and closer to him, gives us: spouse.  So, yes, that’s what we celebrate on this Feast of the Chair of Peter – our espousal.  

Why the Cross?

Carmelite homily for Friday, February 21, 2020 – Lectionary 339 (Mark 8:34-9:1)

On the cover of the most recent issue of the Sword, a Carmelite publication, there’s a picture of Jesus carrying the cross followed by a bunch of Carmelites all dressed in the white part of their habit, this part, carrying their cross.  They’re all carrying the cross.  And that seems to be what today’s Gospel is asking us – that we all need to carry the cross.  But why? I think Teresa of Avila has a great answer.  Here’s what she writes, “If the soil is well-cultivated by trials, persecutions, criticisms, and illnesses – for few there must be who reach this stage without them – and it is softened by living in great detachment from self-interest, the water soaks in so deep that one is never dry.”  That’s why the cross.  To sum up, to get us past our ego, our desire, me, I; and to get me to Jesus, to the other, to God.  That’s why the cross.  

Interior Goodness / Interior Castle

Carmelite homily for Wednesday, February 12, 2020 – Lectionary 331 (Mark 7:14-23)

Saint Teresa of Avila’s best known work is called The Interior Castle, where she uses the image of ‘castle’ to be you or to be me.  And that our journey is a journey deeper and deeper into the castle.  At the very beginning of the book she writes, “We consider our soul to be like a castle made entirely out of diamond; a paradise where the Lord finds his delight.”  In today’s Gospel we have all that comes out of the man defiles him; but what else is in the man but goodness and life and the Lord himself, where the Lord finds his delight.  So I think the deeper we penetrate the castle, the deeper we understand ourselves, the deeper we know ourselves, the less defilement and the more aggrandizement, the more goodness, the more love, the more life.  That’s the invitation of today’s Gospel.  

Aim to Please

Carmelite homily for Tuesday, February 11, 2020 – Lectionary 330 (Mark 7:1-13)

In today’s Gospel we have Jesus condemning loopholes.  The people are called to do the weightier things of the Law, like take care of one another or honor parents; and they get out of it by loopholes.  Well, Jesus condemns these loopholes.  Saint Teresa of Avila writes, “Let us walk with sincerity before God aiming at pleasing him alone and not people.”  Because if we’re working on loopholes, we’re working not for the good of the people, and definitely not the will of God, nor our own growth.  So let us work at pleasing God today.  

Alone With

Carmelite homily for Saturday, February 8, 2020 – Lectionary 328 (Mark 6:30-34)

In the Gospel passage we have for today Jesus takes the disciples and crosses the lake to a deserted spot so they can get some rest.  But the crowds follow and that’s that.  But the invitation is to not to forgo rest, but to find the deserted spots, to relax, and refresh and rejuvenate – and to pray.  Saint Teresa of Avila says, “Prayer means taking time frequently to be alone with him we know loves us.”  That’s the invitation of today’s Gospel passage.  

Perfection versus Perfectionism

Carmelite homily for Thursday, January 30, 2020 – Lectionary 320 (Mark 4:21-25)

In her book, The Way of Perfection, Saint Teresa of Avila, of course, speaks about perfection.  And here’s what she writes (this is very good!), “Zeal for perfection is in itself a good thing.  But it could follow that every fault the sisters commit will seem to you a serious breach and you will be careful to observe when they commit them.  And when they commit them go and inform the prioress.  Often you don’t see your own faults because of your intense zeal for the religious observance of everybody else.  So let each one look to herself only, for perfection consists of love of God and love of neighbor; whereas, perfectionism comes from the devil.”  In today’s Gospel, Jesus is talking about how everything hidden will be made known, will be revealed.  Let’s not make that our job.  Let’s make our job zeal for perfection in love of God and love of neighbor, and let God take care of everything else.  As Teresa of Avila warns us – anything else comes from the devil.